Author(s) : / alexander benlian, Ryad Titah, Tomas Hess
The study focus on two type of online products recommendations in online businesses: provider recommendations (PRs) and consumer reviews (CRs).
Statement is that the OPRs are a "critical encounter tool for value co-creation", and only 43% of e-commerce websites offert PRs and CRs but their respectif effectiveness and impact on users’ beliefs and behavior remain unclear.
The study will first focus on three core belief categories which are: the instrumental beliefs (perceived usefulness and ease of use), the affective beliefs (perceived affective quality) and third the trusting beliefs. These categories are studied to show their respective impacts and mediation of PRs and CRs on OPR reuse. The innovative aspect of the document is that it "investigates the moderating role of product type on PRs and CRs" (Search vs Experience products), neglected in previous OPR studies.
One of the advantages of PRs and CRs is that consumers’ decisions are reduced into only two steps:
1- Managable set of products, limited and specifics
2- The set is reduced and evaluated in details.
Thus it is greatly faster than a tradionnal use of a search engine in the website. But it’s not limited to this aspect.
Actually, it also increase the perceived usefulness of the OPR, bringing help to the customers’ search.
The study argue that PRs are more effective than CRs while speaking of reducing the cost of search and thus the perceived usefulness.
Hypothesis 1 : Consumers will perceive greater perceived usefulness of PRs than of CRs
Hypothesis 2 : Consumers will perceive greater perceived ease of use of PRs than of CRs
Hypothesis 3 : consumers will perceive greated perceived affective quality of CRs than of PRs
Hypothesis 4 : Consumers will have higher trusting beliefs in CRs than in PRs
Keypoints could be that the PRs is mostly a technical and performance asset for both customers and retailers while CRs is mainly optimising the sensitive aspect of beliefs.
Tests validates the differents hypothesis and show that PR and CR exhibit different effect pathways through which they affect OPR reuse and purchase intentions in the context of search and experience products.
By the end, PR and CR can be used to enhance either the transactional (PR) or loyalty-building relationships.